Trump's Undeserved Confidence | David Murrin on @LandCycleInvestor

Summary

• War-Cycle Outlook: The guest argues we are entering the war phase of the Kondratiev cycle, with equities rolling over and a likely shift toward wartime production models.
• Oil Price Spike: Due to Strait of Hormuz risks, refinery outages, and shipping disruptions, the guest sees oil surging toward $250–$300 before 2030.
• Energy Security: Persistent threats to tanker routes and infrastructure imply prolonged energy supply shocks and a structurally tighter market.
• Aerospace & Defense: Heightened conflict and depleted interceptor “magazines” (e.g., THAAD/SM-3) point to increased defense spending across missile defense, drones, sensors, and allied capabilities.
• Equity Bear Market: The guest expects a deep stock market downturn as peacetime, leverage-heavy models give way to wartime industrial priorities.
• Food Inflation: With fertilizer supply (notably from Qatar) at risk, the guest foresees rising food costs, broader cost-of-living pressures, and scarcity planning.
• Geopolitical Risk: Escalation in the Middle East and potential Chinese moves in the Pacific (Australia/NZ access and Taiwan “gatepost”) present sustained global conflict risk.
• Macro Signals: The guest also notes prior signs in markets—oil strength, dollar firmness, and bond weakness—as confirming the unfolding conflict regime.

Transcript

Um, thank you so much, David, for joining me uh this evening. This evening, my time, morning, your time. Um, but I'm absolutely delighted to have you back so soon because it wasn't that long ago that we had our last conversation uh before the world had started to end and World War II was was erupting around us. But of course now um things have advanced quite quickly. And I think um you know I interview you quite frequently and I interview Andrew Panchcholi quite frequently also and uh and um I'm going to shut some things down on my computer as I'm talking to you so it doesn't crash um which is a little bit unprofessional in this introduction but uh you know we we I think we were all sort of um trying to pin the timing of this uh invasion on Iran. Um I know Andrew threw out the 27th to me um I figured that it was going to have to happen on Purim because the the stories are too aligned. The the Jewish festival of Purim of course is uh is about um the Persians and and uh and Esther and Queen Esther and how she saves the Jews uh from um the evil Haman. And uh and I don't know I I'm I'm pretty sure that you would have come very close to forecasting when this invasion was going to happen as well. But uh no surprise to you. I'm assuming um the events of the last few days, weeks. Well, I mean from the time I mean first of all I was as you know warning about the 12-day war because the Iranians were driving for a nuclear weapon and they were in my estimation at that point where they were about to get one which drove the 12-day war. It's why the IDF and Netanyahu were forced to act and it was left as an unfinished chapter with a you know a bombing which started the process and didn't finish it. So when Trump was saying victory is declared, I was arguing that's not the case and that's proven to be correct. The 300 kg of 60% enriched uranium persisted and that was recognized. Trump continued to blab his way through. We've changed everything, which obviously they didn't. And I knew that another phase of this conflict would be far more intense because the Iranians would have hardened themselves to the same type of attack. And although the air defenses wouldn't be rebuilt, their nuclear mechanisms and layering would have been reconstructed and thought about. So this is not a surprise that this major stage has unfolded. I was warning about it as we move through it. The revolution as such was inspired no doubt by the CIA, poorly executed and led so many of those poor Iranians who were brave to their deaths. And I feel just acutely for the Iranians who are not part of the religious construct and the RGC. They've been subjugated to their autoc autocracy and dictatorship for so long expressing their courage have been encouraged to do so and then being murdered in their tens of thousands and now they've been bombed and sometimes not so accurately I suspect by the Americans. Um but going on to the timing of this yes you could see the buildup. You knew the buildup was much more than an exercise. I often say to people, you can understand the intention of a nation by its forced development and its forced deployment. So you know the deployment of essentially huge amounts of American power was not going to result in anything but conflict and recognizing that this whole nuclear challenge had come to a head to be removed properly once and for all. It was inevitable the conflict would take place. Funny enough, you could see that not only in the military buildup and understanding of the rhetoric, but you could also see it in the way the markets were structured. And markets have they're like a quantum mechanical field with information and knowledge. And you could see oil setting itself up for a huge rally. You can see bond markets ready to break down. You can see the dollar ready for a pop higher. And you can see that equity markets are rolling over from their peak and have been all year with the fang. So none of this should have been a surprise to a student of price behavior and patterns who understood that this is the in effect the third wave of the C-wave of the current Kwave which is the war cycle where war breaks out. >> And this was this was actually how we met and I was thinking about this today because when I first interviewed you it would have been I think it was 2022 um where we first sort of connected and and the reason I connected with you was because of your work on the Kandratif wave. It was I came across you I don't I just came across you through a Google search or something but um you know realized that you're not only had you got the dates extremely accurate and there's so much misinformation out there about kondrati of wave dates and people are you know thinking that we're in all sorts of the seventh wave or the eighth wave and you know they're they're forecasting uh crazy things but we we were also talking about war happening at the peak of this cycle um and uh and not only war happening but In line with the Kondraati of wave, there was this notion that commodity prices were going to rise very strongly into the peak and it's been a bit of a ride to get there because we have had very strong commodity price rises but we've also had periods where it's looked like it's not doing anything and yet the forecast has held solid and now I feel that we're really, you know, this is now playing out as to really what we expected to see. So, >> yes, it is. I mean, I was just going back to your Iranian thing. I put out red warnings on my alerts when I think something is 90% likely to happen and 24 hours beforehand we put out a red warning that this was going to kick off. So you can see the warning system we create is sort of escalatory and precise and we've done that with practically all of the events in the Middle East apart from the first day and the 7th of October the same with the invasion of Ukraine. And so the study of conflict is really another aspect of global forecasters inputs into the world. The thing going back to the contratio cycle is I think there's much more to it and I just like to remind people of how big it really is. Then Kratio fell upon a cyclical behavior that's 54 to 56 years and he noticed inflation and conflicts but it's actually a refinement of that process wasn't sufficient to explain how the world works. And I would argue that it's actually a bigger cycle. It's two cycles of 108 to 112 years. And that is the big pulse which triggers hegemonic conflicts. And the intermediate pulse is like a cold war. We had a cold war in the 70s. There was a cold war when Napoleon the third palmerson's follys which most people don't realize. And it's often where there's a hegemonic friction dynamic but there isn't enough energy in the system to ignite a war. But funny enough, the seven years war three cycles back there was so much friction around hegemony and challenge that the whole thing became a world war in that subcycle when the lower cycle and what I'd really like to everyone to hear is the best way I think to describe this is that we live in an entropic universe we have to create anti-entropy to create the bubbles to survive in it and we do that through social systems and when social systems are coherent they're highly anti-entropic and the bubble gets bigger and we get more secure and when we fail in our social organization becomes inefficient and we become less and less antiotropic and at some stage entropic and the bubble collapses and the empire the nation or the company or the family unit implodes. So on a fractal basis >> and to do something that's we do something that's also interesting as if there's not enough entropy in the universe we go to war and war has a social function for us and that is it forces our societies to be adaptive to be lateralized and in effect the linearity of the people that can't see around the corner can't predict any more than railway tracks is filtered out because their inability to cope with the chaos of high entropy environment. ments forcing lateralization and adaptation. And every time we go to war, you see a filtering in effect of the peacetime version of humanity that basically just builds bigger and bigger systems and fails to adapt, swept aside for a more adaptive phase. And we live at this stage in our western world at the most linear extreme thanks to comprehensive money printing for 20 years. So we're really going to get a kick in the pants. Um and what we've seen in this process, this hegemonic process, is that the Chinese have grown in power and mobilized their industry and their ambition and their military and they built an axis of autocracy that had three legs to it initially. The Russians, the Iranians, and the North Koreans. [snorts] They're gathering more like the Pakistanis in the second tier now. And because of the confidence that they had to challenge America, they imbued their Axis partners with the same confidence. And we saw the war in Russia break out. And the war in Russia was the beginning of World War II. I've long argued it. I did on the day afterwards because it came in. And the particular cycle, the contratia of peak or the entropy peak should be 2030. That's essentially eight years before the peak. And if you go back to to 1914, it was six years before the peak in 192021. If you go back to the Napoleonic wars, it was 1793 versus 1808. So well before um and so relatively speaking, 8 years before fits in that time window for the peak energy. And the first thing you know is this energy of friction never gets any better. Hope never saves you. There's never a lucky break. No one puts their toys back in the garage and says, "Grow flowers and let's go and sit in the garden." the friction just builds and builds and builds until the whole thing becomes a confilation you know just a massive fire and a sea of fire so my argument for the prediction was Russia would escalate which we have seen let's just go back and think about that the North Koreans joined and produced active servicemen and weapon systems that came from halfway across the world or the Asian continent the Chinese provide more and more weaponry that's in pieces like little engines that jet powered the gong guren drones and and their glide bombs which have changed the fortunes of the front line and the people behind it. So the Chinese are all over this and now they have advisers on the ground that filters information back. That's a world war in itself contained in a a country called Ukraine and its scale and magnitude are incredible. It's so easy for us to forget, but goodness me, haven't the Ukrainians done well to hold off the Russians with the limited support of Europe and America and you know always late and just not in time and then you move to what's happened and someone wrote to me from Australia actually and if you're listening I hope you got my answer because you were very quiet when they said you I can't take you seriously because it's Israel's war on Iran not Iran's war on Israel and I laughed and said well actually This is the evidence. The evidence is the Islamic State was set up in the revolution in 17979 to destroy Israel to bring together Shia and Sunni with a common purpose to eradicate Israel and that is its reason to be and the RGC and the Müller are wrapped around that intention and they have been busy beavering away for the past 20 years especially to build a nuclear weapon. To do that, to build a nuclear weapon, you need enrichment. You need to get to 90 plus% and then you need miniaturaturization, which we can assume the Russians gave the the Ukrainians for return for their sheer one 36 drones that they pummel Ukraine with. And then you need a delivery system which can slice through missile defenses which the Chinese have given them in the form of fatier one sort of hemi basic he hypersonic glide vehicles. Now, you really should ask the question, why do the Chinese give the Iranians their secret weapon? A weapon that we don't have in the West, the ability of a missile to be launched into space, eject an HTV, a hypersonic glide vehicle that then maneuvers and skips in such a way as its trajectory is unpredictable and it can't be intercepted by our current interception technologies, apart from before it's released in the bus at the midcourse point. And the only missiles that Israel have are the AR2s and AR3s that can deal with that. And the Americans have THAADS and they have SM3s. All of them have limited magazine depth. That means they're so expensive, we haven't made enough of them. And in fact, 25% of all THAAD and SM3 magazines were probably emptied in the last 12-day war, [snorts] shooting down these faters coming through. And you can see them in the video clips. They just come down really fast and they're just all but impossible to intercept once released from the bus and probably some of those systems hit the radars which again in this current war is a little bit of a wakeup call. Some of the radars which are extremely expensive at the heart of the air defense systems were also hit by 136s. The Iranians are smart and they've been fed information by the Chinese, information by the Russians. And this is not just a localized Middle Eastern war because the Iranians have been planning this for years. And option one was essentially go nuclear, wipe Israel off the face of the map. Had all the pieces in play. I'm sure they had the uranium somewhere, the miniaturization, the fattier ones. And that's really what forced this war. The CI tried to create a revolution. Wasn't a good very good version. People who were brave in the streets died as a result of it. And the regime became hardened. So the military buildup really accelerated and it was definitely going to happen and regime change would be the optimum. But again, they forgotten the Iranians plan for plan B, which is if I can't have a nuclear weapon, I'm going to pull America on top of me, I'm going to let them bomb everything on the surface and as I taught the Houthis to do who went underground, launched missiles and kept the Red Sea closed. We're going to replicate that structure. We're going to go through the straits of Musk and and destroy the oil supplies. And so essentially that's their plan and you could see it from the beginning when they were happy to destroy the oil installations. oil and the flow of oil is going to be stopped and they are sinking ships and they're going to mine straight from us and I think that for the first time Trump is about to be called out because he has always wanted to he hasn't got a plan that I mean sadly there's a element of this that believes strategic air power can win which has been there ever since it was developed back in trenchard's time and it doesn't work we know you need boots on the ground unless you drop atom bombs which isn't on the cards and so there's been an element from the joint chiefs I would imagine which is air power will do it. Sure you can bomb everything that moves but the Iranians knew that and their plan is an asymmetric plan to destroy the flow of oil, destroy ships through the straits of Hamas and go on for longer and longer than Trump even imagined. And so Trump can't declare a win when the straits are closed and they can't keep them open because the technology symmetry is so difficult. So oil is going through the roof. Make no mistake about it. It's not going to stop. Yeah, I mean you you've you've um you've given a lot of information there. You've jumped forward a lot because I kind of want to wind it back to the beginning of of where all of this started because there's a tremendous amount of noise that comes as you said. You get an email from someone, you know, that says, "Okay, this is Israel's war. This is all Israel." And um I mean, I I am connect I'm connected to a lot of people in Israel. Actually, it's it's very interesting uh listening to people that are on the ground um uh in Israel with this war. What they have over there is um [clears throat] they have a a siren on everyone's phone. So you can put your phone on silent at night and go to bed and then in the middle of the night it goes off and it sounds like and there was a comedian that described it sounded like a baby dragon like >> this phone going off in the middle of the night and it's like oh you know what's going on. And because the first time that this happened was when um Israel um well there was there was the initial Iranian attack on Israel where they said in nine hours bombs are going to fall and of course all those bombs were intercepted and and nothing fell and so sort of nine hours later Israelis were sort of saying well you know where's where's the bombs you know you got us all worked up over it and then the second time was uh when you know um Israel did its first attack on Iran and and sort of went in there but I mean I think that the commentary that that comes comes at me and that comes online and everybody will have seen this is the argument between okay you know you're breaking international law you shouldn't have gone in you shouldn't have done this um this was a big mistake to um I've got Iranian friends over here they're extremely happy you know that this was the only way to do it and they absolutely should have gone in um I know last time we spoke you were talking about um when they when they went in last time they didn't finish the job and that that was a problem. So what what is your opinion on on this? You know, was this something because because then because they go in and then the school gets bombed and 150 kids die or or whatever it was, you know, and and so that becomes then, you know, a sort of major problem. You know, Trump says this is going to be a short war and it's and it's obviously not turning out to be a short war. And then there's the question of is China going to get involved? Um and these are the you know the back and forth arguments around it. So I mean f firstly was this the right move for Trump and Israel to make? Look, the right move would have been to continue the war, the 12-day war to its conclusion and ensure that the nuclear facilities had disappeared then. And instead, Trump and his ego and probably Putin's influence saying, "Leave my ally alone in some subversive activity resulted in a peace bomb, a pretend peace, which was just a bomb waiting to go off." and the bomb has gone off because the Iranians reestablished their nuclear program. We're probably on the cusp again of testing one and that forced an action and the action was, you know, sadly due to Trump's sort of fundamental hubus after Venezuela where he went in and declared victory. I'm not even sure he has a victory and that the regime's changed at all. And his delusion of how you create this image of bully type force and an outcome is stuck in his head. the bully type technique. I'm going to take Greenland. I mean, the same mindset took him into Iran. Rather than saying, "Oh my god, this is the toughest nut we've ever faced. They have nuclear weapons. They understand how to create a symmetry. They trained the Houthis. Hooties kept the Red Sea closed despite our best efforts. We sent a carrier group for six weeks. We pummeled the hell out of them. And when the carrier group ran out of ammunition and went away, they popped up and kept it closed again." Uh, this could be a little difficult, but they didn't. And that's because of the sycopantic dynamics around Trump is anyone with the strategic mind would have stood up ages ago and not be there. So it's a direct product of the weakening of a profoundly capable system and now it's the worst version of itself. Did they have to go? Yes, because it was imminent that something very bad was going to happen in my opinion. But did they have to go this way with all this, you know, hubistic [ __ ] And I think what's very key is war is a serious affair. Right? The lives of your people and your enemies and in which case your enemies who are your friends because the people of Iran are not the enemies of America and deserve our support are going to suffer. And so whatever you do do, you always end up with more suffering than you wish for. It really depends what your threshold is for that. And Trump's threshold is just doesn't care. And that's what's so alarming and always hexath. They just think it's all about hammering the ground. And there's a word which I've sort of a phrase I've conjured. It's called it's called rubble pounding where you just keep bombing the rubble and the and the rubble just jumps up and down. And that's essentially what air power of this type does. It runs out of targets, pounds the rubble, has no effect whatsoever because you've killed people or they're either underground in hardened shelters ready to come out. And so this story, you know, every time that something happens that Trump doesn't like, for example, they were always going to close the straits of Heras. To think you could call time on the war on Monday, absolutely ludicrousness. If you realized that their target intentions were to hit the oil flow, well, once you do that, you're hitting it quite permanently when you destroy refineries and production plants. So the straits are just the next part of that equation as we're seeing now. And you know, he's so stupid that to stand up and say, "We've won. It's gone better than expected when they haven't even started their campaign because their campaign is about time and duration and access area denial. It's not about pounding on the roster and saying, "I don't have a navy because their navy was never consequential. It was never in the in the piece of the puzzle." So there is a hubistic stupidity on an epic scale and Trump has put his foot into a bear trap and the bear trap is he can never call victory while the straits are not free and flowing and the Red Sea and that is not going to happen for a long time and depending on the amount of inhibition that creates the next outcome and that is that China comes into this war and uses this moment as its catalyst for action. And there are two things that affect his decision. One is there's three I've talked about strategic compression before with the wake up of the Japanese and their mobilization and the wake up of the DO, you know, in terms of trying to mitigate the advantages China has at the moment. Not successfully, but at least thinking about it. And magazine depth is critical for midcourse interceptive capabilities. And this war is emptying America's midcourse magazines. It's less important about its patriots. They've got many more of them. It's what their THADs and SM3s do, which dictates how successful a first strike, which I believe the Japanese have coded and planned for across the region is in that first 20 minutes of missiles. Do you hit every target with your hypersonic glide vehicles? And if you do, the destruction is so much more effective and you have more missiles to do the same to greater depth. So right now Iran is doing China's work by drawing the fangs of the protective envelopes of these midcourse interceptors. And the next piece of this puzzle which is so critical is it's not just the price of oil because oil China's hoovered up so much oil at the bottom whereas America's emptied its strategic reserves to keep the price down for political reasons and to suppress the economy in Russia. The Chinese have been the other side scooping it up. And the work that I've done suggests there between three and a half and four years of reserves. And that number is how long it takes them to get all the way down to the third island chain to absorb New Zealand and Australia and to exclude America from the first, second, and third island chains, double the size of the navy, and come out and fight for the resource chains. And to them, every day they don't get that replenishment of their reserve is a day of strategic impression. So as this really bites and the price goes up, we have to be very wary. And I think part of the attraction for the for the Chinese is the forced dispositions of America will get ever more focused on the Middle East. They'll draw THAD batteries from North South Korea. They'll move their forces more into this zone as the thing proceeds. And interesting enough, the Iranians have managed to hit sophisticated four at least four sophisticated air defense spy 2 and similar radar systems which is really breathtaking and that comes back to targeting information and I would say battle strategies that probably harness both the Russians and the Chinese. So this is just another aspect. It's a fully blown regional war just as Ukraine is to have two fully blown regional wars. I'm afraid anyone that doesn't think this is World War II is living in Cookie Land. >> And the the conversation around China um here has kind of circulated around that America is calling in its military weapons from this area to assist with the Middle East war. And so that leaves China and guarded to make a move on Taiwan if it were going to do so. And I know that that is one of the forecasts that you had um certainly back 2024. I think it was a very solid forecast that you had that China would make a move on >> my window my window was you know anything into late 2025 so we're not you know far away from that and yes the weakening of of midcourse interceptors and capabilities from that region make it easier but China is not going after Taiwan Taiwan is just a gate post and Okinawa on the eastern side is the other gate post it needs free transit to the oceans from its inland China sea to project his power to launch out to grab the Third Island chain. It doesn't have to take Taiwan. It just has to negate Taiwan's ability to stop its access. >> And that's a very important difference. It means it could go all the way down to Australia, take Australia, New Zealand, which I'm afraid is really on the cards and come back to Taiwan later on as long as it doesn't stop their access. >> And and so how how would this play out then? Because that's I mean the scenario is truly terrifying to anybody that lives here. whenever I interview you and and I I I've said this as a sort of joke before, but but it it's true. I have a lot of subscribers that will email me after I've interviewed you, you know, they're really really worried about what is going to happen in the years ahead. Um it's it's a horrible scenario to think about. >> Months, Katherine. This is not years now. It's months. >> So, how would you say give give me a synopsis for what's going to play out over the next few months? because there's a lot of people out there that are still saying the China's not going to get involved. Why would China get involved in this war? I mean, it's very naive, isn't it? When you think about what's happening with the oil and gas. Um, >> look, I think the defense EQ in our western society is negative. The understanding of conflict, weapons dynamics, how modern war is evolving far more rapidly than people imagine. You know, the professional cartridges are left behind. So, the public doesn't understand it. They don't understand how systems manifest their intention to expand in many ways. I would say there is nothing defensive about the posturing of China, its immense stock pulse for its economy, whether it's food or energy, its force structures, its harnessing of its ship building capability, its belligerent politics, the way it treats his own people, the Ouija, the people of Hong Kong. All of the signs are there if the rosecolored glasses are taken off. Just as if you study history, they were there with Germany and they were there with Japan before. You just had to understand how a system works. And instead of projecting I wouldn't want to go to war onto the solution, take the rosecolored glasses and understand that the people that start wars don't think like the majority of the population. Their psychology is completely different. And all you've got to do is look at Trump to realize that psych Trump is not like most people. He's a grandio narcissist. He's a pathological liar. He's a sociopath. He has no empathy. And luckily, that's restricted to sort of 2 to 5% of the population in his extreme form. So, most people aren't going to be like that. So, they can't imagine how that person would think and why they act the way they do. A common mistake. But all you've got to do is look at behavior. Don't look at what people tell you. Don't look at what they say they will do. Look at what they do do and have done. And look for the elements that they're playing to what they're about to do. And it's very clear that China is coming for Australia and New Zealand. Now there's a book and I suggest if you're really interested in little read everyone go and read the book called War Paths by John Keegan. John Keegan was I think my favorite military historian and he wrote things called the face of battle and the price of admiraly which were the insights into what it felt like to be in these various great battles like Wateroo and Trafalga. But in his book Warp Pass, he studies the American wars and something fascinating drops out of his study. His whether it was fighting the French and the Indians, whether it was fighting [snorts] um the Civil the the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, each of those wars had their battles on the same communications points and the point was topography shapes strategy and therefore where battle points were for communications notes. So the lessons of previous conflicts, if you distill them as they relate to topography, apply exactly to today. And the battle that every single Australian should sit back and study is the Battle of the Coral Sea. Because if the Battle of the Coral Sea had not gone in the favor of the Americans, a lot of it through intelligence and luck, Australia would have been invaded and probably not survived his independence. And that was just on the cusp of a battle. And the reason why the Japanese wanted Australia is the same reason the Chinese want Australia, a you have resources, but B, you deny it to America to be the fightback base like Britain was for Europe and Australia was for the Pacific, which means your enemy is still within striking range. It can reach across the great vast and their lengths of the ocean and come through the Pacific, formulate and build itself and then launch northwards towards China. And in fact, if you look at US air power plans, Australia is one of the key launch pads to two for literally two axis of attack. So it's key. And knocking Australia out and New Zealand out means that China can start to feel safer, push the islands back. And suddenly America can't get into the Third Island chain and they have a secure area in which they can industrialize their navy and create true offensive capability while fighting in NATO on the European front and joining the Russians. The equations are very very similar and we just need to be students of history to understand that the planners of China today have similar constraints and realities as the Japanese did. >> So if if you're saying like how this is going to play out from where we are right now, what is going to be China's next move? >> Well, I think uh the the the risks of the China coming in increase every day the war in Iran continues. Every day the Iranians fire ballistic weapon systems into Israel. The SM3s and the THAADS are running down their magazines. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the flow of oil, whether it's from the refineries, they still work and create and most of them are being to be shut down because they can't actually get rid of their oil sufficiently because the tankers aren't moving. So they're shut down. But imagine now they're hit and they blow up and you've got to rebuild them. your oil flow is drying up. 20% of the oil is disappearing. And as that happens, every single day puts strategic compression onto the Chinese. And if I was she, I would just wait and wait until America was more and more frustrated and committed. And I would encourage everyone to go back and read a piece of history and that is the Korean War. And basically they landed in Chong and they went right the way around the top of the of the North Korean forces forced them to go back to the Chinese border and it looked like the UN had a fantastic victory and then one day 4 million exnationalist Chinese soldiers poured across the Yalu River and they caught the whole of the UN forces on the back foot and ended up being pushed back to the DMZ. And it actually it reminds me of the Yalu River that a time that everyone didn't realize it when the Chinese joined the confrontation and added huge strategic heft to the challenge we face. >> So you're saying that there would be boots on the ground >> where >> well in the Middle East. >> Whose boots whose ground? Well, the the Americans >> I mean that that's kind of like the I mean I think that's what sort of everybody thinks when it comes to to how wars progress is okay. You know, everyone thinks oh you know the way that we fight well do we really fight wars now we're still having sending personnel through and still having boots on the ground. Earlier on you said something about that that needing to happen that you need to put boots on the ground. >> Well well no there's some two specific things that I do believe America is going to be forced to do. They will not and cannot call a peace until they have put some sort of commando raids onto the ground in the three known facilities that were bombed in the 12-day war and at least two facilities which have come out as being deeper than untouchable by bombs and they need to get inside them and they need to make sure whatever's in there is destroyed and the program is dead forever. Until that happens, this war is not complete. So we, you know, whatever the words are, that has to happen and it can't be done by air power. The Iranians know it and therefore there's a huge risk that goes with it. You know, trying to land people in the middle of a country, create a sanitized zone. How they do it, I think they might be able to do it with American and Israeli actions. They're both very capable with their power group, but it's a huge huge risk and they're going to have to be there for some time when they dig holes to get through the entrances and through the tunnels to see what's there. So, it may be a period of fortified occupation rather than the idea of a quick commander raid. that I think has to happen before this has any chance. And the other part is the straits of Hamas. And ultimately the only solution really is to put some sort of occupying force on the on the Iranian shoreline all the way along the shore sufficiently they can't use it as observation and control to control the straits. And that's a huge military operation. But I can't see any other way around it. So that's exactly what the Iranians wanted. They wanted duration. They wanted frustration. They wanted denial. and they want commodity prices to sore because they know where the Chinese are just like Putin knows where the Chinese are. >> So, um the end for Australia. [laughter] I mean that I mean to to you know you're saying okay this is going to play out over the next few months. I mean the the cycle that I've been I mean I've always been for I've always forecast always um you know ever since I started writing about this cycle I've had war as the forecast for the peak of this cycle. I've interviewed Fred Harrison early on who was always well Fred Harrison before any of us any of I'm not talking about you personally but before any of us cycle forecasters um that were forecasting based on the real estate cycle was saying that there was going to be World War II at the peak of this cycle and it would involve China when I got first involved interviewing you that was uh the book that you'd written it was the the book that caught my eye which because it was the same forecast that that we were all putting out there which was red lightning but it wasn't breaking the code of history it It was the red lightning one. Um, how China won World War II in 2025. And I thought >> breaking the code of history was really written in O2 and published in '09. But it was exactly the warning that we were going to reach this peak and have this conflict and it would be China that drove it. And so far, China is driving it and we do need to realize they're not our friends. We can't trade with them. We can't be economically entangled and to wake up because they are our enemy. And you know the the other thing that sort of came from that then was was you know we we I mean for you know forever and a day you know the forecast that I've been putting out there is that we're heading into a a dramatic economic downturn that would have a window between around August of this year to the end of 2027 that somewhere between in in that window we would see America fall into recession, real estate crash, stock market crash and the only thing that could disrupt that cycle would be a a world war, a war that would come at the peak. >> No, a world war makes that cycle happen because stock markets are not going to survive. And the economy that we know is a peace time model that's highly leveraged will not survive. And the only thing that will survive is a real wartime productive system, which means if you make handbags, I think you should pack up and go now and start making backpacks with camouflage because that's how you get through this. And people need to understand that that yes, if you're in the old paradigm, it's going to be hell, but focus towards a new paradigm and contributing to how we resist. And I think it's very easy to go, "Oh my god, did you hear what he said?" Well, I think we should celebrate the Ukrainians. Four years after they were invited invaded by a like a monstrously larger country and capability, they are still fighting. They are holding their own. And God, they've suffered and they've been sabotaged and yes, they have corruption. Everyone has corruption. But their courage, their fortitude, their adaption is an inspiration to us. And we must remember how they have done this. And we are going to have to find it within ourselves to replicate that. I'm really sorry, but you know, there was just no other conclusion. And so, we're about to find out that how we didn't help them. And if we had, we wouldn't be here because it would have created a different path. and our selfishness and our just determination to continue with rosecovered glasses and think it's all okay while they literally suffered and being going through hell. We're going to pay a price for that and that price is we're going to have to find the same courage to survive. >> I mean, you you talk about war being the reason that this cycle is is going to collapse. I mean the the cycle that that that I forecast on is a is a pretty solid reoccurring cycle where you see real estate prices collapse because of the amount of private debt that's built up in the system. The speculation against unproductive assets >> and we have that now we have that in Spain absolutely a bomb waiting to go off. >> So so that that has to go off anyway. But this the these longerterm cycles that lead to wars like this where we're talking about the Kondrati of cycle. I mean you know yes we talk about you know rising interest rates and and you talk you you very much direct it towards entropy um and and you know how that feeds into that cycle as well. But at its very base and everybody will you know understand this is this is this need for energy and it and the the fight for resources for the new technology of the day we're heading into now this idea of net zero electric cars the the all sorts of amazing things are going on in terms of um mining for energy to the point of mining the moon. I've done interviews. I've done well I haven't done an interview of mine in the moon but I do know somebody over here that is uh integral in that process. So I wrote about that gosh back during COVID. But um you know it's it's this uh it it's the the desperation to secure the energy lines to secure the trade routes >> that gives fuel to the empires that need the energy. Empires need energy and you know up until 1825ish energy was provided by the good old human battery slaves and indentured people and then the then the industrial revolution came along and that's why Britain led the charge in terms of emancipation of slaves because it was the industrial like frontr runner and therefore it replaced the need for so you know and now we need a source of energy that's more prolific plentiful and cheaper than oil and then we'll go to another societal construct which comes. So each of these big leaps in our societal framework actually has been linked to the energy supplies that supply them because they can become more and more complex and but they still doesn't allow for the fact that essentially even though you have a certain form of energy if your system becomes entropic and you know and unproductive as the west has done and that's why it prints money to cover up that lack of real productivity doesn't matter what your energy supply is essentially it's you're still going to just not create enough anti-entropy. So you need energy and you need to harness it wisely with coherence and that's how these cycles and systems become otherwise. And you can see very clearly, you know, the Epstein files are a really interesting X-ray into where we are because in my opinion, they were created by Mossad. And I understandably in the 1990s, what happened was essentially they knew the Jewish lobby was losing influence in America and they feared for their state's existence understandably. And ultimately it was a honey trap that was probably focused on pedophilia because that's the way you truly take hold of people and you own them on an epic scale. You know, if someone goes off with someone else, they will probably get away with it if they have an honest relationship and they can't be held to blackmail. But Peter Filler is unquestionably a guaranteed blackmail to hold a whole level of politicians and powerful people under their influence. And once you do that, it's pretty dark in terms of how you maintain a ring like that. And I think, you know, the Epstein files are much darker than we truly appreciate for them to have three decades of duration. Then the next stage of that was probably 06 to08 where the evidence in the last release was that's probably where the Russians were were approached. Epste my my own theory was incredibly frustrated about being sent to jail. He felt like he didn't have enough top cover. So he got some Russian top cover and suddenly the Russians have the same information and the manifestation of that today is when Trump promised empty the swamp he is the swamp and it's so widespread and the reason why it just doesn't come out is everyone's implicated who has this you know in that in that fear so many people I mean we you can see just the few which have tipped the iceberg in Europe and the UK and they've been pillared and scapegoated but the truth is if you did that in America it would be terrifying. So I asked myself the question why were they so successful and strangely enough that's because America was in terminal decline where self over collective values were you know frayed people's greed was easily accessible in the honey trap and the dynamic it was easy to corrupt America I bet you if you put the same system in play say in the 50s and 60s when American sort of moral conflicts were strongest it would have been much harder for it to gain traction so it's a reflection of of an invagment of a foreign services to manipulate, but also a weakness and susceptibility. But I would also argue that Israel wouldn't have survived Iran's assaults if it didn't have the leverage that Netanyatus clearly had over Trump to get him to do things he didn't want to do. And so whoever, you know, created it on behalf of Israel, it's a horrendous thing to have created a monster like that. But they would argue for the monster in return we still have a state. And you know there is a horrible brutal analysis of how can I say the game of kings if you think of the game of thrones and you watch it these decisions are made in our films and sets and they're replications of what takes place in real life. So I think we need to just recognize what this whole mechanism is. It's why you see Trump being pulled by a Putin call on Sunday, pulled back by a Netanyatu call, carry on fighting. You know, he's just he's got two puppeteers pulling his limbs and he doesn't know which way to go at times and he's incoherent as well. The only adult in the room is Marco Rubio. >> Um I I have to because I know I know you've got to go at the top of the hour. Um, so I know we don't have too much time left and what people are going to want to know here and and and quite frankly it's what I want to know as well because that they're already talking about oil rations in Australia and uh um particularly in the regional areas rationing oil and if we start to get to a situation where we don't have that resource as we know it now then it leads to a whole domino effect across all sorts of all sorts of industries. Um we we are then looking at a financial collapse. Um I mean it harks back a little bit to the last kandrati of peak which was the 1970s Vietnam war. I think by 1979 what was oil then? $140 a barrel or something in in 1979 something like that. Um but this is worse right? Uh >> look if I'm right about this contractive cycle oil is on its way to 250 to 300. His targets are somewhere before 2030. So that's four years away. But it means it's not going to stay at these levels. It's going to be above 150. And once it surges in the next closing of the of the Gulf, it's going to keep going. So we are in a different energy paradigm which is a different food paradigm and it's also because fertilizers a huge amount of fertilizers come out of Qatar 20% of the world's fertilizers. So food's going to become more expensive. cost of living is going to go through the roof and you know scarcity is a new way of existence for us. So I think people have to be efficient in the way they use their resources and they have to move away from just in time to thinking you know a long way in ahead and going and starting their resilient shopping. Are we looking at blackouts and uh >> well you are in the peace time pro I think no but I think when conflict comes as we found out that you know yes what's happened to Ukraine is going to happen to us it's easy to hit power plants these you know these new weapons of affordable mass we don't have the air defenses to cope with really what a like slower than a V1 attack prolifically wandering around 2 3,000 miles in the future and finding a home in our power plants or in essential places. So, we are just not prepared for this. And yet, we've had warnings in Ukraine. We have warnings. Now, if our politicians are not like jumping to with emergency defense programs, they are betraying the societies they claim to lead. >> Um, [clears throat] it I sort of question what what happens in Australia. I mean, we have a a large Chinese um uh population in Australia, Asian population, a large number of Chinese people here. Um there's a big anti-war se uh sentiment on the ground. Um anti-US sentiment on the ground when we've had uh weapons uh dis um shows in in Melbourne. We've seen you know dramatic protests against that. >> You know what there's a there's a there is the sort of what's it called now? The Darwin group that you know would do actions that would remove their genes from the gene line. And there are all sorts of jokes about Darwinistic behaviors. I put them into that category because it doesn't matter what they think. The people that propagate this, as in, you know, the CCP and its leader couldn't give a flying monkeys what they think. They're going to do it anyway. And to the aggressor, these are just weak people easily picked off. The simple reality is we are about to be predated. And in the Second World War, America interned almost a third, I think, of the Japanese citizens. Funny enough, they didn't intern anyone in Hawaii because the island was too small. But in the on the Californiaifornian coast, there were huge numbers of Japanese that were interned as a perceived threat. And and they weren't. There were no internal acts of sabotage. But I think the Chinese are very different. They they have weaponized their people overseas. just s of Britain and how you know China has secret agents all over the place following people intimidating other Chinese they're prolific wherever they go. So I think that is going to be a huge issue and it doesn't mean every Chinese is the wrong side of that but how do you tell the difference and we're going to end up with a real issue in in a in a cold war we were concerned about fifth column Russian forces you know unpacking their weapons and blowing things up. I think we have a far bigger problem with China um and China doing it remotely through through you know through cyber attacks and we're going to have a very lumpy time I'm afraid because we're not prepared. >> How long would this this play out for? Because that was the other thing that you've been uh discussing is that if we do get war this is a long war that potentially lasts quite many years. >> Hegemonic conflicts are not resolved quickly because there's so much depth of resource in the struggle. And so, you know, it could easily be a decade and, you know, it could be longer if there's a stalemate as we've seen in Ukraine where neither side can gain the advantage through the distances across the globe. So, I all I can say is I can tell you when these things start as in 1914, but 1914 ended in 19, you know, 18, but the pause was a pause before they did it all over again. It didn't really end until 45 or possibly even till the end of Korea when the Asian hgemonic structure was ascertained. So one all I can say is once it starts it only ends when there's a dominant hedgeim >> and that's really sobering because we've lived in the Pax America period and the Pax America period has been the illusion of global peace that we are civilized but I'm afraid we're about to see another aspect to ourselves. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think >> that is the most terrifying thing. It kind of brings me back to um the question that one of the questions we get quite a lot particularly if I do a Q&A with you is you know where do you run and hide. I'm curious about what your thoughts are on that because you know you're not living in the safest country. you're far closer to it than we are or that we feel than we feel maybe. >> I sort of, you know, you can run and hide and you can probably live out a few more years than others because you're further away or you can realize that the Chinese are coming everywhere. This is the first true attempt at a global empire, not just on the sea as Britain had, but on the land and they have the capability to do that. Whether it's the size of their population, whether it's their algorithmic population control systems, or whether it's their robotics which are coming online in a way that is terrifying, >> they have the ability to do something that we can't match. And so my view is actually you're better off fighting where you are. You're better off making your stand where you are. Obviously not next to a power plant or obviously not next to the house of parliament. Be sensible about it. But actually, I think you do what you can in your own society because if you move away, you have no influence. You're just basically a person in the middle of somewhere and you're waiting to be picked off. And I would prefer to be much more proactive about standing for yes, our democracy has been weakened. Our democracy is a worse version of it. We're led by morons and idiots who can't see their hands, you know, even in clear daylight. But I truly believe that even this version is better than the version of autocracy, having our individuals pruned out for their DNA, families wiped out, and everyone told what to do. So we need to just realize that what we have is not the best version of what we could have, but we better fight for the freedoms that our ancestors gave us so our children have the right to make better democratic systems on on our shoulders. I think um just I I know I'm pushing time with you, but um I mean that that was China's display on its new year. Year of the Fire Horse came in and they did their New Year's display and uh you would have seen it. I'm sure most if if my subs haven't seen it, I I'll put a a link to it um when I released this. >> Pretty scary. >> It was it was the that show where they had the robots that came on and did the martial arts moves. And I someone sent me that and I said, "Oh, no. this is these are people these are people that are dressed up in costumes and he was like no no take a look at it I mean that they are so in so far ahead aren't they of where they are >> and since then we've seen pictures of bipeds and quadripeds doing weapons activities so you know can you imagine that they make armies of 10 million robots that come for you before their people arrive who are already prolific >> it's it's like we're being outclassed on every level and our hubris and our western arrogance and our weakness are just making us easy prey. >> And I'm afraid every politician that even hears this needs to look in the mirror and really reflect on their part of how they have not strengthened us against this threat because they haven't recognized it. And there will come a time when we look back and we will have suffered that initial blow that will be terrible as we shake and some people say, "Oh, surrender. They'll let us live." and others go no we'll keep fighting as Churchill went through over the Dunkerk retreat and all the things around it that period of appeasement versus fighting there is no compromise with absolutism >> um I mean that was Trump's argument with I know you say that the the way Trump should have done it would have been to unite right rather than separate the USite NATO and he he didn't do that but I mean his rhetoric you know I think when people look at him they sort of see someone okay he's who's stronger because his rhetoric has always been, you know, we're not going to let the Chinese when he's talking about Greenland. You know, he's saying the Chinese and the Russians, we're not going to let them take over Greenland. >> Okay, but here here's a really interesting phrase about Trump. What he says and what he does are not the same things. If you look at his actions towards Ukraine, you could just imagine Putin being inside his body making the same actions. If you look at what's happening actually in the Middle East, much as it looks like he is acting against nuclear weapons in Iran, he is also conducting this conflict in a way that truly weakens America's deterrent capability against China. That's completely in opposition to the stated like dynamic of resisting China. And I'm afraid I do not trust a single motivation that he has. It's either about himself or his puppet masters. It's not about us. And however they've created it or manipulated it, they've created the greatest weapon against Western democracy. Whether it's democracy in America or democracy and federalization and the collegic dynamics that would have created scale that had a chance of containing China. Everything he has done has weakened us. The trade tariffs, trust, the attacks. I mean, this is he's like a wrecking agent. So I'm afraid it's all very well listening to pieces and saying strong great he's unpredictable and the people fear him. If I was she I would be drinking my tea thinking he's even better than Biden. He's weakened his own side. Right. Destructive to the nth degree. I just wait for my moment and the whole system the whole edifice will topple. >> Well um thank you David. I know I've gone past the time and you needed to go. It's always a pleasure to talk to you Katherine and look you know I will say this it is really daunting where we are and I find it daunting sharing this with you. I find even more daunting seeing all my predictions come through like one by one by one and still not not seeing our society mobilize or having people in denial saying it isn't real. And our only hope is to get out of Darn and really get on the program of being prepared mentally and in terms of industrially and mindset and the qualities of leaders we have to resist this struggle effectively because it's we are going to get struck. It's a question of how deeply we're struck and how resilient we are in bouncing back because I don't believe it's a foregone conclusion. I think there are many issues as we saw with Ukraine that teach us that democracy and individuality has many advantages on the battlefield, but they require tough emotional personas that dig deeper than they ever imagined and sacrifice on a scale that's just appalling. And yet that's where we are. Um I there was that interview um you sent me because uh interview that you' done and I I might link to it um in again in the show notes when I send this out, but you were talking about China's capital having more males than they do females. >> I've I've talked about that for 20 years and what does capital mentality. >> Yeah. Yeah. Just quickly explain what that was. Well, most societies have 51% males and that's enough risk capital to go to war. But the Chinese ended up with a one child policy where parents killed their daughters and in favor of their sons ended up with a 55% excess male population. And my thesis was that would make them far more aggressive than people understood with the extra testosterone collectively and individually unconsciously expansionist because the men had to go outside their territory to find mates. And I think that's been borne out by their behavior in the past 20 years. >> Yeah, it's interesting. It's a very interesting It's a very interesting understanding of it. Well, I will let you go and thank you again. Um and we will uh we will have an expanded conversation next time where we go into our other stuff, our paranormal. >> Well, you know, many of your readers do follow my marin nation's gold. If you don't and you want to know what is happening and we is will happen, it's there's nothing else like it. And if you want to stay in the dark, don't. But if you want to actually get some get some open source intelligence and strategic thought processes that map this out far better, then I suggest you you get in and get a subscription. >> Yeah. And and I will put a link to that and I I mean I can absolutely categorically say that there is nobody else there's no one that I know that can provide the analysis that you provide which is why I always keep getting you back on. But you are right in what you said in that everything that you forecast that was going to happen in military-wise since I've been talking to you has in fact happened. I mean we the only thing that probably hasn't happened is China moving on Taiwan. Um but I mean even even that is still being talked about um as a as a viable thing that that could occur. Um >> and and and you know my first mode with global forecast was educate and warn. We're coming to the end of that and now the other part you'll see surfacing is how do we how what strategies do we need to survive and fight so and how do we educate ourselves so there's it's not just about the moment the Chinese move it's all over it's the next stage of now use that knowledge for our benefit and there's a a new service which I've added recently it's called marinations premium uh or platinum and essentially every day I look at the relevant news cycles and tack them onto the marination predictions so at the bottom of a marination you can see how it's coming true in terms of the flow of real news. It's a very potent way to follow the strands which I use to build my big picture models. >> Yeah, professionals. >> Yeah, it's for professionals and risktakers. It's, you know, 200 pounds a month is not for the general public, but it's an incredibly at a times of this really potent way of understanding how things are unfolding. And I make comments and insights about news on the day that most people wouldn't see or understand. So, it's uh it's really good around conflict times like this. >> Well, if there was ever a time to subscribe to something like that, it is now. Uh while everything is unfolding and people really don't and that that is the problem with following the news. You feel like you're in a sea of of unknown really. You don't know which way the wave's going to. >> So, I think there's a couple of things. First of all, they tell you what is happening. They have very little insight. They do not connect the dots and often they're strategically actually incorrect about defense issues and they're just bumbling around and say crappy things like there's one reporter on Sky who kept saying this the Type 45 sent off to Cypress could incept ballistic weapons. No, it can't because we didn't pay for the upgrades and it doesn't help everyone thinking it can when you're poorly educated and you should be better educated because that's a fundamental of a main weapon system and its capabilities. So, you know, whereas in for the first time I was on a train this week and as I got off, I heard a daughter talking to a mother about the different types of drones in Iran and I thought that's interesting. For the first time in a public space with daughter and mother, they're having a conversation about a weapon system where I've never heard that before. Not saying it hasn't happened, but it was interesting that it's rising to the four. And then it's a question of where you get your information. And I, you know, I've built a we we're launching a thing called Spitfire strategic capital which will change the way that private capital flows into defense innovation because global forecasters warning I've done that and now we need to harness it and how all the skills and IP that's part of the site are harnessed now to create a better outcome from us. So I'm moving as much into action as I am in terms of global forecasters work and now Spitfires. >> Very interesting. Well, I will link to all of those when I send out this interview, which will be on Saturday. And again, thank you so much for joining me. Um, and we will do it again. >> You mind to send it out sooner because it'll be out of date soon. >> I know. Well, that's that's kind of up where it's getting because I was thinking I wasn't going to interview you this week and I thought, "Oh, no. I've got to get you on because things are moving. >> You need to get I must get it out in 24 hours, boys." >> Yeah. It's been crazy. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, what you know what I will do is tell everyone just to jump onto Instagram and follow you on Instagram because um you and Andrew I'm terrible at Instagram. I I just it is I'm just terrible at Instagram. I will fully and have got it down with your daily updates and uh >> I the Marin Raw thing is a really cool Instagram feed and you know it's I've help and Sophie does a phenomenal job but actually I'm amazed that more people haven't latched on to it because it gives you just a bit each day to feed on and that bit you can follow up if you come into our other services but it's a great first part of the funnel really into what we do. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean those those um face to camera updates, you know, sort of what's going on each day. I mean they're gold. I mean you you do it really well. Andrew Panchcholi does it really well. I mean he jumped onto Instagram and started doing it and I was like oh this is really good. And and he sort of picked up something like a few thousand followers really quickly. But yeah I mean it it's it's a good little medium to get a message across quite quickly. >> Very visual too. A lot of I like visual things so that works. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Okay. Well, we we will we will meet again very shortly and uh thank you once again and we will talk >> and everyone go and do their resilience shop. >> Yes. Yeah. Thanks for that. It's another cheery chat with David comes comes to an end. >> I do tell jokes as well. [laughter] >> We'll talk soon. >> All right. Take care. Bye cancer.